


Words We Can Say

by quantumhearts



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, New York City, Pining, Road Trips, Vancouver Canucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 13:55:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13215168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumhearts/pseuds/quantumhearts
Summary: It wasn’t Brock’s first time here, of course. But the lens he’d seen the city through was a kid’s, a long time ago, it seemed like. Not a rostered NHL player with a healthy salary. And not with these guys, his best friends — Stech and Hutty and Virts and Bo.And Bo.





	Words We Can Say

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. This was inspired, of course, by the video of Brock and Bo at the NHL Network studios while they were on the east coast for their extended NY/NJ road trip. Specifically the scene where Bo tries to touch Brock’s hair. 
> 
> 2\. I had to fudge the date of the Rock Center tree lighting by 2 days to make it work for the story. And the dates/details of a bunch of other stuff too, if one is compelled to nitpick such things. 
> 
> 3\. Spoilers for Goodfellas, lol? Does a 27-year-old film need spoiler warnings? 
> 
> 4\. Here’s the [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V44LA1lalg).

New York, New York. 

 

It wasn’t Brock’s first time here, of course. But the lens he’d seen the city through was a kid’s, a long time ago, it seemed like. Not a rostered NHL player with a healthy salary. And not with these guys, his best friends — Stech and Hutty and Virts and Bo. 

 

And Bo. 

 

He’d been taught wrong by Home Alone 2: Lost in New York: you couldn’t see the Manhattan skyline from any vantage point at JFK airport. Somehow, that’s what he’d been expecting, once he boarded the charter bus and they were on the Van Wyck heading towards Manhattan. But there was still a lot to look at, even if the streets of Queens weren’t quite what he had pictured. 

 

They were all chattering a little about the city, about what they were excited to do and see on this extended trip. Brock stayed silent, fiddling with his phone but remaining alert to eavesdrop. Nilsson said something about wanting to go to Times Square and got quickly dogpiled: “No, man, Times Square is for tourists! If you’re not a sucker you wanna get out of there as fast as you can, _trust me_.”

 

Brock _had_ wanted to see Times Square. But just being at MSG would probably be enough, right? He was nervous, now: maybe he didn’t have the correct canned answer, if someone from the media asked him about his New York bucket list. 

 

He looked over at Bo, who was panning the interior of the bus with his phone, for Snapchat. Brock grinned when the lens settled on him, always happy to be the focus of Bo’s attention, even if it was only for a couple of pixellated seconds. 

 

_New York. New York. New York:_ the tags, showing up on his phone, when he took a photo. That alone was a magical thing. He had a feeling he wouldn’t have to force the magic into being. It was November and not even 5 pm but the sky was darkening, and the city was starting to look a little like the sparkling visage he had seen in a thousand movies. They crossed a bridge, and another bridge. He looked vainly for landmarks he might recognize but found none. But that was okay. They would come. 

 

He looked over at Bo again, across the aisle and a few rows down, and he was looking back at him already, a benign, angelic smile on his face. 

 

_Yeah, this might be the place_ , Brock thought. _This might be the right place to tell him._

 

_——_

 

They ate dinner at the hotel, which disappointed Brock. He desperately wanted to get out into the streets and explore. He counted the blocks during their slow crawl to the Herald Square hotel and it was such a short distance to Times Square; he could even just walk up there after dinner, and get it out of his system. But there was curfew — which was understandable, in a city that seemed to seep adrenaline from its pores. Stech let him take the bed closer to the window, and he kept the blinds open and just looked out. He didn’t even really know what he was seeing. It was 11:30 and the city was still so alive, the traffic still so thick, the glow from street-level marquees still so vibrant and wild. He understood why people fell in love with this place, and he’d seen so little of it. 

 

He had trouble sleeping. The darkness wasn’t even dark, for all the light pollution outside. The sky was a burnt orange, instead. Stech laid on his back, as he did, and snored, but Brock was awake. He thought about Bo, and let himself be swept away by Brooklyn Bridge fantasies, Empire State Building observatory proposals. 

 

——

 

In the morning, they went to Newark. More traffic-choked streets that seemed too narrow, under-engineered for the insane volume of coach buses and U-Hauls and towncars and taxis and commuter vehicles. Then a tunnel, and then they weren’t even in New York anymore. The city was already behind them. 

 

“You seem a little — I dunno, dumbstruck? Is that the word for it? Since we got here,” Bo said to him, as they walked from the bus to the rink, keeping his voice low since there were seekers and photographers closing in on them both. 

 

Brock laughed, to fill the silence since he didn’t know what to say to that. It was true. “I’m excited to be in New York.”  


“Well, we’re not in New York right now, we’re in Jersey, and you gotta focus, man!” Bo said, giving him a playful nudge — one that had enough energy behind it to indicate that he was also serious. That was the future captain in him. 

 

Luckily, the Prudential Center was just another Anyplace arena. It wasn’t hard for Brock to get to his game-space once they were there, under the fierce fluorescent lights, in between painted concrete walls. He could easily employ, for example, the distraction tactics that he always needed to keep from looking at Bo in the dressing room, strapping on his protective gear, the slices of his skin that are visible when he reaches up for his water bottle on the shelf, the way his body flexes and curves when he pulls on his jersey. 

  
Or maybe it wasn’t working, this time. 

 

——

 

And the way Bo skates to Brock after his goal. Was he imagining it? The way Bo’s arms come so big and easy around him, and then linger there longer than they need to? _Was he imagining that?_ He knocks his helmet into Bo’s, and tells him what a beauty shot it was, what a beauty goal. There are the ice-level shouts around him, and then the din of the crowd in general, and the yells from the bench — but he still hears Bo murmuring to him. He has an antenna for that in his brain. 

 

It energizes him better than anything else. He feels it in his toes, and tingling at the ridges of his cranium. He feels it in his fingertips, electric, through to his stick and his skates, a film, a halo. 

 

——

 

Stech fell asleep on the bus. A lot of the guys were snoozing. Brock wasn’t tired: well, his body was, but his brain was still screaming. He could see those passing lanes materialize after the puck was already off his stick. He could see the guy in his peripherals open after it didn’t matter anymore. It was the good retort to the burn when the time had come and gone. All the puck sense in the world wasn’t worth a thing if it came a second too late. 

 

He wasn’t tired, but Stech, he knew, would want the lights out right away. He heard Bo say something to Eddie about wanting to see what was on TV, movies or whatever. Eddie, the introvert, just shrugged his wool-clad shoulders. 

 

“Hey, Bo,” Brock said, jogging a little to catch up to him in the hotel lobby, “I can tell Stech is gonna call it the second he gets back to our room, and I kinda still have some energy. If you’re up for it maybe we could see what’s on TV in your room?”

  
He waited a quarter of a beat and Bo said nothing so he covered for himself: “Or not, I know you’re tired, like, I’m tired, too, so —”

 

But Bo smiled wide, and clapped him on the shoulder for an earnest moment. “Come on by, man. I’m not sleeping anytime soon.” 

 

As predicted, Stech hit the lights pretty much the moment they entered their room, so Brock had to get out of his dress clothes awkwardly, in the dark. 

 

“I’m going to Bo’s room, to watch a movie, okay?” he whispered across the darkness. Stech didn’t respond. He was out, for now. Brock would be in for it later, when he re-entered the room at one or two, but he’d deal with that as it came. 

 

When he got to Bo’s room, he’d just started _Goodfellas_ , which Brock had seen more times than he could count. That didn’t bother him, though: if anything, it was comforting. Bo, in his civvies, was comforting too. He was in shorts and a long-sleeved tee and calf-length socks, which was enormously endearing. It was a less-is-more approach to skin and Brock was convinced completely. Even if that wasn’t the intent, and naturally it wasn’t — what a silly thought, after all. 

 

And Bo’s room had just the one bed, of course. He considered, for a stupid moment, sitting on the lounge chair, but then said an internal _fuck it_ and got on the bed with Bo, settling against the headboard. They were a healthy distance apart on the queen bed. Brock still felt a faint hammer, a little rhythmic reminder of his anxiety, of the thrill of being here next to Bo, _alone_. 

 

They both groaned and cried out “Oh, shit!” during the scene when Joe Pesci got shot through the forehead. Even though Brock had seen the scene a dozen times and knew it was coming: it was invigorating, now, to experience with Bo. _In New York._ That added extra colour, even if it was imaginary. 

 

And they shuffled their bodies a little bit, reacting. Brock slid his hips a little to the left, and Bo’s shoulder was suddenly so much closer; they weren’t yet touching but the presence was palpable. 

 

“Ray Liotta has such great hair in this, I always notice,” Bo said. 

 

“What? Better than me? Come on.” 

 

“Hey, hey! I always assume every _good hair_ comment I make comes with the caveat that yours is always the best, at all times. I mean, it’s a given.” 

 

Brock gave him an elbow. He was trying to bridge the divide, find the contact. 

 

The movie ended, and they both laughed at Henry Hill’s lament about egg noodles and ketchup.

 

“Sound like Hutty’s dream pregame meal,” Bo said, and they giggled again, sliding back against the headboard a little bit as the credits started. 

 

“Fuck, it’s almost three a.m.,” Bo said, checking his phone. “Guess we should call it?”

 

“Yeah,” Brock said, suddenly uncertain. “Fuck, I don’t wanna wake Stech.”

 

“Well then, stay here.”  


“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah. I mean, you’re already here. I know him, I know how pissy he gets when his zeds get interrupted.” 

 

Brock chuckled at that. _Zeds_. “You Canadians,” he said. 

 

“You fucking _love it_.” 

 

Bo didn’t realize how true a statement that was. 

 

And it was funny: Bo shutting the light off, and the two of them trying to play it cool, trying to play it bro-like, in the undersized New York City hotel room. Brock wasn’t very well going to cuddle up with him under the covers, as much as he wanted to. They both laid kind of lamely, still fully dressed, on top of the comforter. Once Bo was asleep he rolled over and hugged one of the ornamental pillows. Brock just listened to him breathe. Every moment they had had, up until this point, was the best. It was all that Brock could want. It was bliss. 

 

——

 

He blinked into consciousness and the first sensation was something heavy draped over him. An arm. Bo’s arm. 

 

He was laying on his side, facing the closet and the bathroom, and he had Bo’s arm around him. 

 

They had bridged that divide, evidently. Their bodies had been drawn magnetically together, in the unconscious realm. It made Brock happy and also very, very scared. He was awake, and if he moved, then Bo might be awake too. And then what? 

 

So he lived it. He worked his hips backwards, just a tiny bit, into the warm cradle of Bo’s body. And he put his chin in the crook of his elbow, let his lips touch the skin a little bit there, while he could.

 

And Bo curled around him, his sleepy reflexes permitting the touch. Brock breathed it in for a while, Bo’s arms around him, his knee between Brock’s own two, his warmth a perfect cocoon for the cold morning. 

 

And then their alarms went off. 

 

——

 

Stech didn’t really react when Brock re-entered the room. He was already dressing, but Brock could feel Stech’s eyes on him, flashing in his direction, over and over. They didn’t actually speak to each other until they were walking through the hallway to the elevator, heading to breakfast before they bussed to practice at Chelsea Piers. 

 

“You fall asleep in Bo’s room?”

 

“Yeah,” Brock said, without looking at him. 

 

“Sitting upright in a chair?”

 

“No,” Brock said, carefully keeping all affect out of his voice. 

 

“Bo’s only got the one bed in his room, though, doesn’t he?” 

 

Brock said nothing. 

 

“Oh, man. You know how beet fucking red you go when you’re embarrassed, right?”

 

“ _Yes_ ,” Brock said, thin-lipped. It was a thing he hated about himself, so much. 

 

“So,” Stech said, wiggling his elbow against Brock’s. He still wasn’t really raising his voice. They reached the elevator. 

 

“Don’t,” he said to Stech, still not looking at him. He could see Stech’s obnoxious grin out of the corner of his eye. 

 

At breakfast Bo sat down at the same table as him. They didn’t look at each other. The panicked way that Brock had leapt out of Bo’s bed when their alarms had sung their cacophonic songs: he had flung Bo’s arms off of him. Not on purpose, only out of shock, out of discombobulation. He hadn’t ever undressed so he just slid on his sandals and stammered a word of goodbye, collecting his key card, his phone. 

 

That faltering goodbye had not done any of it justice. Bo’s arms around him. Bo’s breath in his ear. Following a loss, it had been complete peace. 

 

——

 

They were breakfasting as a team, but then Bo and Brock were going to be driven by a car service to Secaucus, New Jersey, for their NHL Live appearance. During the meal, though, their teammates teased them. 

 

“The future of the franchise, eh?” said Hutty, in Brock’s direction. “That why they’re sending you?”

 

“It has nothing to do with skill, or potential, they just picked the two best-looking guys,” said Stech. “’Cause it’s TV. They’re being shallow.” 

 

“No one’s really gonna see this on _TV_ , you morons,” Hutty supplied.

 

“They picked Bo for his muscles,” Taney said, reaching over to squeeze Bo’s bicep, and Brock felt this weird pang of jealousy — _no_. He wasn’t jealous of Taney. It was longing. He longed to touch him like that, without a second thought, and not feel ill. 

 

Goofing around with Bo at the studio was fun, but he was terrified to have that camera training on his every move. He just had to breathe deep and remind himself that he was in control. He knew he could never, in a million years, watch that video back later. 

 

The moment they got back from Secaucus, that afternoon, was when Brock felt like he was truly _in_ New York. They shook off the social media people, and were still alone, just the two of them, and Bo said, “So where do you wanna go?”

 

“Central Park,” Brock said, without hesitation. 

 

“Yeah? Okay. We can do that. Let’s go!”

 

They took a cab, and of course the traffic through midtown was so brutal that they remarked more than a few times through the trip that they could have just walked. The cab clipped pedestrian tourists’ legs like it was an established sport. Finally they arrived at Columbus Circle, and the cabbie gave Bo shit for not having cash, and Brock grinned. 

 

“I love New York,” Brock said, as they stepped out of the cab. 

 

Central Park was, again, like so many movies coaxed into three dimensions. The grass was brown and the trees were bare but the park was so alive with people. And their dogs, and their hot dog carts, yoga and tai chi and armies of strollers, stoners crouched behind pathetic copses of trees, paused joggers clutching steaming paper cups. The brown, skeletal treeline and then behind it, the skyline. 360 degrees of it. He’d never seen anything like it in his life. 

 

Eclipsing all of it was Bo, his little smile, his kind eyes. The remarkability of New York could easily be tossed aside. Brock was, after all, still so high off of waking up with Bo wrapped around him. Just a loose arm, not even gripping him, really. The way Bo kicked in to him a little was reflexive. The way Bo dug his chin a little towards him — the way Brock arched his neck backwards — and then Bo’s fingers curling against his thigh — 

 

Bo had been asleep. He hadn’t known he was doing that. Right? 

 

The thought conjured a little prickle of anxiety, or excitement, or both. 

 

Their path through the park took them past Wollman Rink. The ice surface was swarming with skaters. 

 

“I didn’t know this was here,” Brock said, a few silly fantasies already weaving themselves into being in his head. The sky was darkening and it seemed almost like a movie set, the rink and the little bodies, gliding dots, amber-lit as if a fairy tale. He couldn’t dismiss the fantasies outright. “Do you want to —”

 

“No. That ice looks like shit,” Bo interrupted, and they both laughed. Another little fantasy dashed. That was okay. Brock liked the way they materialized so easily with Bo around. 

 

——

 

On Sunday, after they lost to the Rangers, there was a team dinner in the wine cellar of a Mediterranean restaurant in NoHo. The neighbourhood at night was sensory overload for Brock. New York made him dizzy.

 

He wanted desperately to invite himself back to Bo’s room again, but he didn’t know what to do. He’d thought all day about how to frame it. He was a little tipsy, now, his face warm from the red wine he wasn’t old enough to have. The food had been so good, so rich, so beyond what he had ever imagined eating. Combinations he had never considered. Bo had sat a few seats down from him and he’d kept glancing over, after each course arrived, as they were eating. Bo was sort of a country boy and didn’t think much of fancy stuff, or wasn’t automatically impressed by it, anyway. He nodded and chewed and Brock watched him. 

 

He thought of being in this restaurant just with him, just the two of them: what they’d order. What they’d talk about. It would be such a sophisticated date. Brock would have thought it up on his own, of course, and Bo, in spite of himself, would smile in wonderment, in reverence. 

 

It turned out he didn’t have to invite himself. Bo texted him as they were riding back to the hotel. 

 

» _U up for a movie in my room again ?_

 

Bo could see him check his display, from across the aisle. Brock just looked up at him, and gave him a quick nod. All the rest of the guys were staring at their phones and paid no mind to the moment. And Stech said nothing to him when they peeled away in the direction of Bo’s room after stepping out of the elevator. 

 

_Movie_. That was the pretense. Brock was already nervous. Bo didn’t even really have a plan, it seemed. They scrolled through the guide, Brock sitting a careful measured distance from him on the still-made bedspread, flipping his phone over anxiously in his hand. 

 

“Face-Off?” Bo said. “It’s just starting.”

 

Brock had never seen it. “Sure,” he said. His phone was lighting up with Snapchat notifications. He muted it and flipped it so it was facedown on Bo’s bedside table. He specifically rejected the distraction. He wanted to focus on Bo. 

 

He was a little drunk. It was different from the other night in that way: tonight, he felt loose. He grinded his shoulders a little against the headboard, getting comfortable; he took note of Bo’s body, the way he was sitting, his lips and his jaw and his face. He was (—deliberately?) not looking at Brock, his chin jutting towards the TV, breathing through his nose, his lips twitching in a way he probably wasn’t cognizant of. 

 

Brock just watched him, watched his face, watched all of it. 

 

Bo didn’t notice. They watched the movie, and laughed a little, and commented on it. An hour in, he knew he wouldn’t be going back to his and Stech’s room and disturbing that peace, so he kicked off his own socks, and then pulled his sweatshirt off: Bo always liked to keep his room so warm. He’d teased him for that, but had never hung around long enough for it to affect him. 

 

“Sorry, I know it’s hot,” Bo said, with a soft chuckle. Brock just looked at the crumpled sweatshirt on the floor of the hotel room and thought of how much he liked that. 

 

After another twenty minutes or so, Bo was yawning and tugging at the covers, and then getting under them, and Brock was half-helping him, pulling the duvet suddenly over both of them, or at least loosely over Brock’s knees: Bo was on his side, fully submersed, committed to the quilt. Brock knew he should be tired and that his nerves were giving him false energy. Having Bo’s body next to him like this should have been comforting but it was instead the exact opposite. 

 

“Mmm. Turn off the light,” Bo said, a few minutes later. Brock leaned over and switched off the lamp, and then the TV, so that the only light came through the gap in the blinds, that muted New York glow that shone in perpetuity. 

 

Brock laid there, enjoyed the imagined proximity of their bodies, even though they lay with a trench between them. Then he felt Bo’s arm pulling at him, urging him towards him. So he closed the gap, and was the big spoon, his heart still hammering. He knew Bo could feel it. He knew Bo wanted him to feel better, to feel comfortable, but he couldn’t. It was still so difficult. 

 

“It’s okay,” he heard Bo mumble, and with the last of his energy he reached back and grabbed Brock’s hand, and they fell asleep there, their fingers laced together, the fine thrum of New York outside the window. 

 

——

 

 

Stech didn’t say anything to him this time: he just shot him a too-long knowing glare. Stech knew about Brock; he’d been party to enough of Brock’s comments and complaints about the boys he had known at college, most of them as frustrated and confused as Brock had been. 

 

“So you’re not, like, into _me_ , are you, bro?” Stech had asked him once, both of them drunk, not long after Brock had come out to him. 

 

“You are _not_ my type,” Brock had said, almost ready to call Stech on his arrogance, except he also thought he might vomit. 

 

“What’s your type, then, huh?” Stech had pressed him. Brock never answered him. Then, a couple years later, during one of Brock’s first practices with the Canucks, he’d sat on the bench and watched Bo skate in a wide arc around the net, juggle a puck on his stick, take a couple of shots from the point. Stech was watching Brock watch Bo. 

 

“ _Oh_ ,” Stech had said. “ _Now_ I think I get it.” 

 

——

 

Their last off-day in New York was crisp and clear. After practice, the guys again broke off into smaller factions to explore, and some wires got crossed and Bo and Brock ended up among separate groups, off to separate places. Bo and Taney and Eddie were off to midtown again, to go up to the top of Rockefeller Center and then see the Christmas tree lighting. Brock and Stech and Hutty and Virts were going to the 9/11 memorial, and then taking the ferry to Liberty Island. Brock wasn’t thrilled by this. What he really wanted was to walk around the city with Bo again, but he didn’t feel like he could say that to his friends. 

 

The memorial was good. There were guys on the street corners hawking unauthorized guides to the memorial for ten bucks, and tourists who were buying them, and that made Brock kind of sick. And the Statue of Liberty was fine too, although Brock didn’t find that standing right underneath it really enhanced his appreciation of it. He preferred it as a landmark, something neat to notice from certain windows in certain parts of the city. He got snaps throughout the day from Bo. One of them came with a “wish you were here” sticker. 

 

And then, shortly after arriving back in Battery Park, Brock got a text from him.

 

» _I’m thinking of ditching these guys. Do u wanna meet somewhere? I know u said u wanted to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge?_

 

_» Yes_ , came Brock’s response, immediately. The other three were standing a couple of feet away, discussing what to do next. He heard Hutty say something about bagels, which were also on Brock’s list to try, but his mind was already made up.

 

“Look, I’m gonna catch up with you guys later, is that all right?” Brock said, not even bothering to formulate some excuse about not feeling well or anything else. He gave Stech a long, deliberate look, and that prevented any follow-up questions. The other two just shrugged, and then Brock hailed a cab to take him into Brooklyn. 

 

He waited for Bo at the entrance to the pedestrian walkway to the bridge. He tried not to look at the bridge or the buildings or the sky or anything, as if to leave it unspoiled until they could experience it together. He just scrolled through his phone and looked at pictures he had taken. There were so many pictures of Bo — he hadn’t even been conscious of taking that many. Bo hitting wiffle balls in Secaucus, Bo eating a piece of pizza, Bo in Times Square, a million glinting LED and neon lights above him and around him, the blurry shapes of people, red chairs and tables strewn haphazard around the plaza. In spite of all of the colours and the movement in the photo, Bo was easily the most striking thing in it. And he was wearing that smile, that little crooked one that Brock thought might have been reserved just for him. 

 

“Hey,” came Bo’s voice, after he had waited about fifteen minutes. He was extraordinarily handsome in his navy peacoat and dress shoes, and the black scarf that Brock wanted right now to tug on, to pull Bo closer. 

 

He didn’t, though. Instead, he asked, “So I guess you’re not doing the tree thing?” 

 

“There were so many people there already, I was getting anxiety. It was an easy out; the other guys didn’t care. Looked like there was going to be a concert and stuff too, but all the decorations they had up seemed kind of lame.” 

 

“Oh. I don’t know why, but it sounded so classy to me, like a movie. Kind of romantic. Uh, I mean —” Brock stammered, not meaning to say that word out loud to Bo. 

 

“No, just a huge crowd of people holding up their phones. Not romantic.” 

 

“Holding up their phones. Unlike you,” Brock teased. 

 

“That reminds me,” Bo said, pulling his phone out and snapping a quick photo of Brock walking. “We have to document this.” 

 

“Especially since it’s sunset,” Brock said, noticing the bands of pink and orange streaking low in the sky over the river. Sunset really had nothing to do with his fascination, though. He watched Bo stuff his hands back in his pockets, watched the little puff of his breath in the frigid air. 

 

They walked for a little while, until they got to the first tower, where there were lots of tourists taking photos. There were also, though, people jogging, and biking, and walking their dogs: people that lived here, and were just going about their business, taking their usual route, even if that route happened to be along one of the most iconic structures on the planet. It occurred to him that Vancouver must be like that for some people. It was a gorgeous, other-worldly place to newcomers: it had been to Brock. But Bo had been there for years now, and now the mountains and the ocean and the snapping crows and eagles and seagulls and whales were all just ordinary things. The same way this bridge was ordinary to New Yorkers. 

 

Maybe Vancouver was a magical enough place for the genesis of something real between them. Or maybe they didn’t need a magical place: maybe it was never about the place. 

 

There were too many people around for Brock to grab Bo’s hand, even though he wanted to, desperately. They took a few selfies, but kept them notably to themselves, not ready to let the other guys know what they were up to, and apparently not ready to talk to each other about that fact, either. The sun went down over Manhattan, and the main cables of the bridge lit up in white lights, and they walked without speaking. 

 

“Better than the tree lighting?” Brock asked, once they’d reached the end. 

 

“Way better,” Bo said. “It was pretty funny how excited Eddie was for it, though, so I hope those two had a good time.” 

 

“We have some time before dinner,” Brock said. “What should we do?” 

 

“Let’s just walk a little longer,” Bo said. He was looking around, and Brock wasn’t quite sure what he was looking for, not until they got into City Hall Park and Bo steered them towards the fountain, to an area of the park that was relatively unpopulated. It was dark now. The park, like everywhere else in New York, it seemed, was decorated for Christmas: they stood under a canopy of soft light, garlands that twinkled in the trees. 

 

“This is such a beautiful place,” Brock said, staring up in wonderment, as he had so many times already, at the giant structures that loomed all around them. “I’m sad to be leaving.” 

 

“We’ll be back here,” Bo said, and then did the thing Brock had been too scared of, and took Brock’s hand. “Maybe just the two of us.”

 

His heart began to hammer instantly, and he tried to swallow to steady himself but instead produced a strangled cough. 

 

Bo leaned in, close enough that Brock could feel the vapour of his breath on his face. Bo could feel that Brock was shaking. 

 

“Do I really make you nervous?” Bo asked, his voice so soft, so kind and perfect. 

 

“You — you always have,” Brock said, and it was the truth. Since day one. 

 

“We’ll have to fix that,” Bo said, and put a big hand behind Brock’s head, his fingers in his hair underneath his toque, and kissed him.

 

The fantasies had existed in two dimensions, black and white, celluloid. Now they exploded in full colour in Brock’s head. It didn’t really matter that he had pictured Bo’s hands on him a thousand times — it didn’t prepare him. He felt it everywhere, an intoxicating pulse that spread quickly through him. Bo’s nose and his cheeks were cold but his mouth was so warm. 

 

“Fucking finally,” Bo said, breathless, once they broke apart. 

 

Brock closed his eyes. Bo still had his hand on his cheek, and it was warm too. “It’s just a relief.”

 

“A relief?” 

 

“That I wasn’t imagining this.” 

 

“You weren’t. But it should be more than a _relief_ ,” Bo said, nudging his way into another kiss. 

 

“I never say the right thing,” Brock murmured, after the kiss, into his chin. “I’m sorry.” 

 

“Don’t say you’re sorry, either. In fact, don’t say anything.” 

 

He kissed him once again, and there were people around, but it didn’t matter. One thing Brock had learned about New York was that you could be anonymous here. There wasn’t anything remarkable about two tall men embracing each other next to a frozen fountain, in a park that was not so much a destination as a shortcut for harried commuters, their soundtrack the racket of taxis honking, the _whoosh_ of hydraulic brakes.

 

_This might be the right place to tell him_. 

 

He still didn’t have it in him, didn’t have the words. Bo seemed to think he didn’t need them, though. So still they touched, and didn’t talk. Bo’s woollen scarf rasping against Brock’s cheek, the full warmth of his mouth letting Brock in, Bo’s hands on Brock’s sides expressing all that was necessary: _we’re here, and we’re together_. 

 

——

 

“It’s been great having the room to myself, almost this whole time,” said Stech, as they packed up their things. It had also been nice to have the luxury to even unpack in the first place. 

 

“Free rein to throw your clothes onto every flat surface, you mean?” Brock said. Stech just scoffed.

 

“Not that I didn’t miss your _delightful_ company, but I’m glad that you guys —” Stech paused, struggling with a zipper on his overburdened suitcase; he’d taken advantage of shopping opportunities in the city. 

 

Brock just smiled at him, closed-mouthed, wondering if Stech would really say it. 

 

“I know you really like him,” Stech said, seemingly finding the words after a few moments.

 

“How can you tell? I never even said anything.”

 

“You don’t need to, bro. It’s obvious.” Stech was stepping on his suitcase now, to line the zipper up. 

 

“I hope it’s obvious to him, too,” Brock said. 

 

“Well,” Stech said, “You can hope for the best, or you can actually say something.” 

 

On the bus back to JFK, Brock mused on that. He glanced over at Bo, as he always did — _always_ , he was just now realizing: the pieces had been in place for a while. Bo looked back at him, the scantest trace of a smile at the corners of his mouth. Brock knew what that mouth tasted like, now: that thought sent a little unbidden shiver through his body. But he still couldn’t imagine really _telling him_. 

 

That would have to be left to the magic of another city, he supposed. 


End file.
